


the deadliest girl in the whole wide world

by theformerone



Series: tumblr prompts [17]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Compliant, Gen, girls helping girls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-06-30 20:39:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15759264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theformerone/pseuds/theformerone
Summary: Mitarashi Anko is where young kunoichi go to die.(She's also where they go to grow up.)for prompt, “You’re lucky you’re cute.”





	the deadliest girl in the whole wide world

She looks like shit. Panting heavy, tongue dry and stuck in the back of her throat. She’s straining under the weight of all that she’s had to do today. Without her team, without anyone else to fall back on, it’s clear she’s been inching towards cracking under the pressure. 

Mitarashi Anko is where young kunoichi go to die. 

That’s what people say, at least. You don’t go to her for training unless you want to get chewed up and spat back out. If you want a nice jounin kunoichi instructor, you go to Kurenai. She calmly assesses your weaknesses from afar, gently beats your ass in hand-to-hand and comes up with carefully outlined training regimens suited to your every need. She’ll even make you a damn training diet. 

With Anko? You get a trial by fire and nothing less. 

But Hinata’s been getting the shit beaten out of her for as long as she’s been able to stand on two feet. Hiashi’s a pure can of shit that way, but Anko can appreciate the ferocity of his training. Kunoichi are in twice the danger shinobi are in, just by virtue of womanhood. If Hinata’s mother were still alive, she’d be the one drilling her daughter into the ground. She’d know how to do it better, too, because her mother taught her. But Hinata only has Hiashi, and he beats the shit out of her the way he’d beat the shit out of a boy child. 

He had passed his daughter off to Anko. He hadn’t wanted to waste much more time on her training considering how well Hanabi flowered under his instruction. Unwilling to leave his firstborn to Kurenai’s ‘soft touch’ (which wasn’t all too soft if you asked anyone who knew her when she still worked in T&I), he enlisted Anko with a sizeable purse of ryo to pick up Kurenai’s slack. 

There wasn’t much to pick up. 

Hinata was shy, yeah, that much was true. But there was something in her eye. Something in the way she stared up at Anko through her midnight blue bangs. She stared Anko down even though Anko had dislocated her left shoulder and blew a hole deep enough in the earth to twist her ankle. She was holding her own. 

She looked damn fierce. The way all kunoichi did when they wanted to hit a wall, but something kept them from doing it. Hinata had been living at rock bottom since Hanabi was born and started showing her up. She hadn’t been allowed to get angry about it. But Anko? Anko knew the fine line between a desperate kunoichi and one that was pissed. 

Hinata’s stutter was the only thing that kept people from knowing on which side of the line she walked. But Anko could tell. 

“Alright, brat,” Anko says, lifting her hand to let her know the spar is over. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

Hinata doesn’t relax; she knows better by now. Knows that Anko’s best lessons are in sneak attacks, in looking weak when you’ve got another ace up your sleeve, in positively brute force in the face of sure defeat. Hinata doesn’t falter until Anko sits down in front of her and pulls a sealing scroll from her back pocket. 

“You know what this is?” 

Hinata’s pale eyes narrow, but her eyes watch the scroll as Anko unfolds it. 

“A, uh - ,” Hinata licks her lips, then gingerly sits down. Anko doesn’t help her. “A s-summoning scroll.” 

“Bingo,” Anko says. She unrolls it as far back as it will allow. She doesn’t have the large version from Ryūchi Cave, no, that one is massive, too long and too full of names. All of Orochimaru’s family line is written down on that scroll. Anko’s name is the first interruption. 

“How would you feel,” she drawls, “about being my apprentice?”

Hinata’s eyes go wide and young and vulnerable. She’s been someone’s genin, someone’s daughter, but never anyone’s apprentice. That means being chosen. Not being dropped by fate or by virtue of grades and best possible combinations of natural skill, latent talent, and hard work. Not some fantastic miracle of egg and sperm and conception. 

An apprenticeship means someone seeing something in you and wanting to nurture it. 

Hinata is hungry to be wanted. But Anko would have picked her even if she weren’t so needy for validation, for someone to see something in her worth looking at. Someone with eyes that aren’t cold like her father’s or sympathetic like her jounin sensei’s. 

And she is angry. Anko loves angry women. She’s been one for as long as she can remember. 

“Yes,” Hinata says, and her stutter doesn’t catch her. Her pale eyes flash and her cheeks are ruddy with exertion and excitement. She looks down at the summoning scroll, and though Anko can see the slight fear in the way she hunches her shoulders, she can also see the curiosity. 

Anko snorts. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it never touched a snake. Little bastards were too quick. 

“Let’s get to work then,” Anko says, rolling the scroll back up. Hinata’s face falls the way that people who are used to losing just before they win something. Anko rolls her eyes. 

“Don’t gimme that look, brat,” she says. Hinata ducks her head, shy at being caught looking disappointed. “You’ve got a lot to learn before I let the snakes loose on you. Katon, for example.”

Hinata nods, and Anko goes on monolouging. It keeps her young. 

“Basic ones. And basic field medicine for when these fuckers bite you because you aren’t paying attention. You’ll need to know how to reverse engineer every basic poison this side of Oto.” 

Hinata nods again, hands balled up on the fabric of her pants in her lap. She looks like she’s trying to memorize it all, which she probably has, to be fair. 

Anko lets a little smile drop onto her lips. Hinata looks so damn serious. Studious. Eager to please though pretty well aware that she’s probably going to fail. It’s earnest. Sweet. Anko can’t wait to break her of that. To pick a little more at that anger until she’s a woman with only enough fear to keep her alive. Brave enough not to jump at her own shadow. 

“Now,” Anko says, feeling breezy. She leans back on her hands, twirling the scroll in the palm of her hand. “Tell me everything you think you know about snakes.”


End file.
